Edition 56

Millennials Strike Back

  • Published 2nd May, 2017
  • ISBN: 9781925498356
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

Millennials, those born in the final decades of the twentieth century, have had bad press for a long time. Now they are fighting back as they come of age in a world radically changed from that experienced by previous generations.

Even the oldest were still in primary school when the Soviet Union collapsed, when deregulation swept the West and much of the postwar consensus was jettisoned, when the Kyoto Protocol was signed and when the internet became a reality and the world shrank. They were in their teens when the World Trade Center collapsed, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan produced a new world order; when climate-change sceptics and shock jocks poisoned public debate; when the first dot-com boom crashed, China experimented with capitalism and revived consumerism, the global financial crisis pushed capitalism to the brink, and Facebook was born.

The challenges this generation now face are great – political uncertainty, climate change, globalisation and economic stagnation have changed the rules of the game.

This is the best educated, most connected generation ever, but the world they live in does not offer easy pathways – inequality is rife and traditional doors are closed. Some millennials are detached and disillusioned, but others are coming up with innovative ideas, experimenting with new ways to live and work. Their vision and energy will shape the future.

This special edition of Griffith Review is devoted to the challenges and opportunities this generation is facing and embracing. It is co-edited by Julianne Schultz and Jerath Head.


Listen

The Wheeler Centre
15 May 2017

Co-editor Jerath Head hosts a panel discussion with contributors Briohny Doyle, Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Timmah Ball at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.

In this Edition


Young lady, that’s inappropriate

AFTER GRADUATING FROM law school, I spent a full and disturbing year working as a judge’s associate in the District Court of Queensland. The role required silence and discretion, and each week I sat, mute and powerless, watching things unfurl in front of me – both in and out of court – that made me want to get up and run. Forever the youngest in the room, often the only female, things that were normal to the seasoned lawyer unsettled me. I used to think all the time: Is anyone else seeing this?

Peasant dreaming

I’m currently doing a course on holistic farming near the southern New South Wales town of Braidwood. I had expected it to be full of ruddy-cheeked cattlemen in their forties and fifties; instead it is mostly people like me, tertiary-educated thirtysomethings who want to grow their own food to nourish their vocations. We are writers, a ceramicist and a filmmaker; a market gardener with a background in conservation; the manager of a local farmers’ market and her partner, who feeds his chooks on maggots from roadkill kangaroos.

The bystander

The median strip led to the other side of the highway. We emerged boot-first into a flood of oncoming headlights. Screams howled from the back seat. ‘I’m dead,’ I thought. Then it hit. Another car, speed meeting speed, like two protons colliding. I didn’t get the luxury of a concussion. I stayed awake the whole way through. There was a glimpse of black, a few seconds max, when my head reeled from the soft impact against the dashboard. White pinwheels spun on the inside of my eyelids. Blood flooded back into my feet and fingers. After that everything went berserk.

Standing Rock

In August 2016, the seven bands of the Great Sioux Nation gathered at the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers on unceded treaty land bordering the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The Seven Council Fires were lit for the first time since the...

Featured Contributors


Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.